


The Greatest Weapon

by Lorde_Shadowz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus Dumbledore Bashing, Altered Polyjuice, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Genderbending, Good Rita Skeeter, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, Rita Skeeter's Acid Pen, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, Smart Harry Potter, some character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorde_Shadowz/pseuds/Lorde_Shadowz
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 17
Kudos: 69





	1. The Beginning of it all

Contrary to the opinions of some, Harry Potter was not an idiot. Oh, he certainly played stupid. After a lifetime of abuse for doing better than Dudley, you could say that he learned the hard way. He'd learned that authority figures were the least trustworthy of people, he'd learned that it was safest for him to keep a low profile, he'd learned how to fend for and defend himself. But there was only so much laying low he could take.

It wasn't even just Umbridge that was bothering him. He could deal with her if he just ignored her inanities about book learning without practicals, and Voldemort being gone for good. No, it was everything: the Dursleys, Sirius's unjust imprisonment, Snape's humiliating behavior to him in class, and a growing suspicion that Dumbledore was not all he said he was.

Something had to be done. That something, however, had to be done right. The press was mauling him right now, and no one would listen to anything he said, be it about Voldemort or about the nightmare Umbridge. But there was an idea percolating in the back of his mind. What if it wasn't him? Rita Skeeter was a "respected" journalist, and he had a nice bit of dirt on her. He also, as he'd discovered during an unsupervised visit to the goblins, had enough money to bribe both her and the _Daily Prophet_ and what was stopping him from using a pen name? Or scattering flyers? It was, admittedly, a very Slytherin approach, but there was no way he could say any of what he wanted to as Harry Potter.

And he had to get another owl, too. He felt bad about it; Hedwig would feel passed-over, but she was too remarkable an owl to be seen carrying the missives he needed to send. He wondered idly if you could order an owl by owl-order. And then he had another, fairly good idea.

"Dobby!"

""Master Harry Potter sir calls Dobby?" The diminutive elf was bouncing on his heels in excitement. "What can Master Harry sir be wanting?"

"If I give you the gold, can you get me two nondescript owls and sneak them into the owlery without anyone knowing?"

"Yes Master Harry Potter sir, all elves be shopping for their masters!"

"Thanks." Harry rummaged in his truck, ending up pulling out a sack full of galleons from his last Gringotts run. "But please call me Harry. I'm not your master."

"Yes Mas- yes Harry sir." Dobby adjusted one of his three brightly colored hats over his ears, and took the gold. "I be going Harry sir."

Harry supposed "Harry sir" was the best he was going to get.

In the time it had taken Harry to finish Potions, have dinner in the Great Hall, and be roped into a pickup Quidditch game, Dobby went out and procured two little grey owls, looking, except for the brand, to be regular mail owls. Harry grinned as the overexcited elf dragged him into the owlery to look at them. They were absolutely perfect! Dobby, when he told him that, burst into tears and started hugging Harry's legs.

The next morning, Harry got up by candlelight and crept down to the Common Room before even the Seventh Years, taking with him a muggle notebook, which he proceeded to ward with a "selected view" ward, that Sirius had taught him. Granted, Sirius had intended it to be used for concealing Wizarding porn, but this slightly more helpful (and healthy) variation of the spell would conceal all of his plans as sketching, which, while maybe causing a bit of good natured ribbing, would not cause anyone to stage an intervention.

And then he got started. His list, at first, was not very long. He, as well as Ron and some muggleborn fifth years, had been treated to detention with the lovely toad, and with Rita's help, he could stir up a proper fervor over illegal artifacts being used on minors. He also planned on engineering Sirius's acquittal, and, all things going well, get several marked Death Eaters, like Lucius Malfoy, in deep dirt. And maybe, at some point, get the people of the Wizarding world to wake up and learn to defend themselves against Volde, provided that they could be persuaded that he was back in the first place. Come to think of it, this would be a good time to reveal Voldemort's half-blood status. The ministry wouldn't oppose it, as he was supposed to be dead anyway. Harry grinned and started drafting his first project, and his first letter to Rita.

The fireworks started the very next morning.

"Oh my God, Harry, look at this!" Hermione said, almost shoving the _Daily Prophet_ in his face.

Harry glanced up from stuffing bacon in his mouth in a marginally more mannerly way than Ron, and tried to act as if he hadn't drafted and sent the exact same letter the previous evening. "Well, what is it, 'Mione?"

"Rita Skeeter! It's about Umbridge!"

"Hey, can I see? Is it juicy?" Ron asked, eyes sparkling. It was a mark of how much Umbridge was universally hated that even Hermione didn't begrudge him his enthusiasm.

Harry knew exactly what it said; after all, it was one of the two articles he'd spent all night writing. The other, as it was merely a letter to the editor, would probably come out the next week, but this one he'd sent to Rita, in outline format, and apparently she'd written it and sent it in to _The Prophet_ post haste, just in time for the morning addition.

_Hogwarts Professor Tortures Students!_ screamed the headlines.

_Hogwarts is supposed to be have the best teachers, and standards, of Britain. Recent events, however, are beginning to discredit these claims. Is it a good learning environment when Defense students are taught theory only, despite the fact that OWL's, and NEWT's, are coming up for some of them? Is it a good environment when said teacher assigns detentions for disagreeing with her, detentions in which she forces students to write lines with a blood quill?_

_Hogwarts has had its run of bad teachers: frauds, werewolves, half-giants, and polyjuiced Death Eaters, but even the infamous Potion Master Snape had never stooped to physical torture! A ministry flunkie, with not even the minimum of NEWT's required for an auror, and only an A on her Defense NEWT, nevermind a mastery, and having records of being drunk on duty, is torturing our precious children, including the boy hero, Harry Potter! The boy is not available for comment, but reputable sources have mentioned that he has permanent scars from blood quill use on his left hand._

_May I also mention that had it not been for minister Fudge's interference, she would have spent her life patrolling Azkaban, due to undisclosed circumstances? According to Senior Auror Moody, "The bitch aught to have been gone a long time ago. I suspect a cover up, possibly fraud."_

_Surely this ministry-sanctioned sabotage must be quelled, before any more of our children can be hurt! Surely even if Dumbledore sits back and ignores this monstrosity, we, as voters, as citizens, as parents, can take action!_

Umbridge was choking incoherently at the staff table, too angry even to come up with a "hem hem". Most of the teachers looked a mixture of horrified and amused; even Snape's lip was twitching as though he couldn't control his amusement, and Mcgonagall looked ready to take on both the ministry and Umbridge herself at one and the same time, and give them a piece of her mind for hurting her lions. And every single student, even in Slytherin, was passing the _Daily Prophet_ among themselves, gossiping and whispering until the entire hall was one wall of sussurating voices.

The rest of the day might as well have been a holiday. Herbology turned into an impromptu party in Greenhouse Two, while Pomona Sprout potted fanged geraniums and looked the other way, and Mcgonagall canceled her lesson plan to teach decorative transfiguration, once it was clear that no one was listening. According to the gossip at lunch, even Snape couldn't keep his classes in line, although Harry personally doubted that one. The twins had smuggled in a cask of Ogden's finest, and the best part of all was, they couldn't go to DADA, even had anyone wanted to, since the twins had trapped the classroom with a few of their best jests, including a foul-smelling portable swamp. Umbridge had to be rescued by the house elves, as none of the staff were willing to go get her.

Harry was smirking all throughout the day, although he had a close call when Hermione commented that he seemed to have already known about the article. He'd admitted his involvement, but not that he'd actually done most of the writing. The rest of the day, he couldn't find a minute to himself long enough to continue his next article, so that evening, with the curtains around his four-poster shut and laiden with his usual silencing charms (handy for obscuring the scratch of a quill as well as the disturbance of a nightmare) he wrote his next article by wandlight, and snuck it into the owlery before anyone else was even awake.

The next evening saw the fireworks- both literal and figurative. Umbridge had been dragged out of the Great Hall during lunch by an incandescent Amelia Bones, right before the afternoon's torture session (hem hem, DADA class).

Not that they could have gotten to the DADA classroom anyway, what with a portable swamp the twins had set up. Lee Jordan, of course, found this a most excellent opportunity to try out a new batch of the twins' fireworks, and even Snape smiled a little at the beautiful flaming dragons and nifflers and such (although he then took thirty points from Gryffindor, and when an amused Mcgonagall commented, fervently denied that he'd found it funny)

Harry grinned happily at the fireworks, glad for anything to take his mind off the growing Voldemort problem, but he was even happier later that evening, when owl after owl dropped their offerings on the long tables at dinner. Rita Skeeter had struck again, and evidently, the editors had turned it into a special edition. On top of it, she'd done her research- better even than Harry could have hoped for, and the details she'd dug up were satisfactorily juicy. Harry pictured Voldemort in a safe house somewhere, reading the _Prophet_ , and giggled .

_'You-Know-Who a Halfblood!'_ screamed the headlines

_The greatest Dark Lord since Salazar Slytherin is not only not a pureblood, but a halfblood, of the worst kind: born of a squib and a muggle. The story is both lurid and tragic._

_In the town of Little Hangleton lived the last remnants of the Noble and Ancient House Gaunt, Marvolo Gaunt and his mad, sadistic son Morfin, together with the first girl in that family for four generations, the squib Merope, in a little shack. Abused for her lack of magic, and reviled by her wealthier relations, Merope at last turned to cunning, and slipped her handsome, wealthy neighbor Tom Riddle a love potion, to force him to sweep her off her feet and take her away._

_They lived together for a year, until Merope got pregnant and stopped giving Riddle the potion, probably thinking he would stay for the baby. He left her. Having no other means of support, and no way of going back, as her father would have killed her for birthing an impure baby, she sold Slytherin family heirlooms for as long as they lasted, until finally dying at an orphanage, living just long enough to name her baby._

_You-Know-Who grew up as a muggle, in a muggle orphanage, during a muggle world war which coincided with the rise of Grindelwald. Was it any wonder that he turned into what he would be? With muggle influence, and no Wizarding help, even when he went to Hogwarts (where he was supposedly Head Boy and Star Seeker) and, of course, conceived under the influence of a love potion, could he have turned out differently? Could Albus Dumbledore, then one of his teachers, have stopped him going Dark? We will never know._

_How many orphans are being ignored now, when we could help them? How many potentially great wizards are turning dark for lack of support? Is there a new Dark Lord in the making?_

Where the other article had filled the Great Hall with cheers and speculation, this one caused a dead silence to fill the hall, save for the Slytherins whispering among themselves, and the Ravenclaws taking notes on leftover parchment. Even the staff were shocked into silence, except for Snape, who looked furious, and Dumbledore, who looked annoyed, under his concerned grandfather persona.

Harry grinned. For possibly the first time, Rita hadn't disappointed. He could get used to this. After having a suitably shocked conversation with Hermione and Ron, he used his Charms essay as an excuse to sneak back into the dorm and start his latest outline for Rita. Lucius Malfoy would be in some very hot water rather soon.


	2. Reactions

The next morning dawned bright and cloudless, although everyone was still rather subdued after the shock of the previous nights' _Daily Prophet_ , the Slytherins especially so. Draco, in particular, seemed to be somewhat shellshocked.

Harry actually felt sorry for him, especially as he knew what was in the works. Draco, blessedly, had no idea, or he doubtless would have been still more miserable; as it was, the shock of his noble pureblood father having growled at the feet of a halfblood during the last war was a little too much for his Slytherin Prince ego.

But, fortunately or unfortunately, Harry had already sent a liberally marked and remarked outline to Rita, and Malfoy would totally be roasted. He would also be furious, but Harry could handle furious. Especially as Draco would have no idea it was him.

Currently, Harry was sitting at the Gryffindor table with his "sketch pad" taking notes of everything else he wanted to do, and actually doing some drawing too- he wanted to make sure his "sketching" excuse could be backed up, if necessary. Besides, he actually _did_ like drawing.

His notes, however, were of vastly more importance right now. They comprised a list of all his ideas for articles and pamphlets, his notes on the reactions of different students, teachers, and houses at large, and most of all, the list of things he wanted to do when he got the time, and the things he wanted to look into personally. His notes were as follows:

**Articles** _:_ Sirius's lack of trial, where do muggleborns get their magic, the Triwizard tournament, myself, Safety at Hogwarts, werewolf, house elf, and goblin rights, Wizarding etiquette and the joke that is muggle studies, bullying at Hogwarts, Hagrid's wand being snapped, Dark, dark, grey, and light magic...

**Reaction Chart:**

Gryffindors: seem to be universally glad about Umbridge article; are shocked about Voldemort's true nature, but more because of the lurid details than the blood status, and McG. is not at all surprised. Hortensia Blossom is the only one in the * !#!? he's a halfblood? camp.

Hufflepuffs: definitely glad that Umbridge is gone; there are more muggleborns in that house than any other and muggleborns were mostly the ones who got detention with the blood quill. Most shocked about Voldie's status and past, and some ! seem to be sorry for him. Zacharias Smith is saying that Voldie's status is what made him evil; keep an eye on him.

Ravenclaws: almost all visibly glad Umbridge is gone; some don't show it, but they're not sad either. They're debating on why Volde is evil and all of them seem to be doing extracurricular research. Some of the hardcore purebloods are trying to prove that his "tainted blood" is what made him evil, while others maintain it's his background. Flitwick seems to be encouraging the debates.

Slytherins: glad that Umbridge is gone with almost no exceptions. Well, that's one thing the whole school agrees on. Very subdued. Most are either discussing Voldie's status and changing their opinions or in denial. Interestingly, Daphne Greengrass didn't seem all that surprised, and she doesn't act very upset, either. Snape looks like he's bit into a green orange.

**Things to look into:**

Dumbledore- why doesn't he give me information when I need it. Why did he put dangerous animals in the school to protect the stone. Why did he have to protect the stone? Why wasn't he worried about the Flannels dying? Why didn't he check on me at Privet Drive? Why did he send Hagrid when I needed someone to introduce me to the Wizarding world- isn't McG. supposed to do that? Why didn't he push for Sirius to get a trial? Did he know who the secret keeper was? Why did he allow Hermione a time turner when she was burning herself out? What isn't he telling me about why Voldie wants me dead, and why? Why didn't he give me my dad's cloak as soon as I got to Hogwarts; it was mine, wasn't it?

Voldemort- how am I connected to him? Why is he hunting me down? How am I getting visions and how do I block them and can the visions be false? Why did he go after me in the 1st place? How does the Dark Mark work? Can the blood wards at my house keep him out now that he shares my blood?

Snape: why does he hate me so much? Who is he loyal to Voldemort? Dumbledore? How does occlumency work? Is he being affected by the Dark Mark or is he just a total git or is he both a bit and being controlled? How well did he know my parents?

Ron and Hermione: can I tell them? Can I trust them? Do I dare tell them, or should I keep them ignorant to keep them safe? Why did Molly Weasley talk so loud about the platform that one day I met them? Is Hermione safe at Hogwarts?

Lupin: he never came to check on me at #4 Privet Drive, but he claims he was a friend of my parents. He's a werewolf but not Dark; but who is he loyal to? He seems suggestable. Why hasn't he at least tried to be in my life more?

Draco: Lucius Malfoy is definitely bad, marked etc. However, Draco seems more like a bully than a murderer. Maybe he can be turned to our side? He seems like he has at least a partial conscience. How will he react to the latest article? Is he enough of a pureblood snob that he'll reject Voldemort on grounds of blood purity?

Ginny: is she okay since the possession in her first year? How is she doing now? How do I very nicely stop her from crushing on me?

**To Do:** learn occlumency, get an animagus form, write and send all above articles, look into all above questions, get a place to live away from the Dursleys, look over my account with the goblins, do homework...

Harry might have written more, but at that moment the owls were dropping off the mail, and Harry eagerly pulled his paper out of his bowl of grapefruit, happily anticipating the chaos. It was nice to cause a stir, as long as he was anonymous.

Harry glanced at the _Prophet_ and could scarcely swallow his goofy grin. Rita had outdone herself; he'd have to give her a pay raise. A big one. He'd only speculated about half of the notes he'd sent her, but evidently she'd used her animagus form to spy, and, from what it looked like, held some blackmail over Lucius Malfoy, because the article was a juicy one, and some of it had to have come from the man itself.

 _Lucius Malfoy Admits All!_ Harry risked a look at Draco, who had turned a ghastly color and was skimming the _Prophet_ desperately.

_Lucius Malfoy, an upstanding citizen and sponsor of St. Mungo's, has recently been found to be bribing current Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, who himself is under investigation for fraud, in a shocking turn of events! Recent research of the reporter's, however, as well as testimony from several sources, disclosed and anonymous, has hinted that there is more to the story._

_"Mr. Malfoy has always been a good customer of mine," Mr. Borgin of Knock Turn Alley's Borgin and Burke's comments. "He has quite a stock of Dark artifacts; it's really a pleasure to work with him."_

_A senior auror, one Ophelia Lane, has less positive things to say. "We've known he has a hidden room of Dark artifacts for a long time now," she says, "but we just can't prove it! There's only so many times you can declare a search warrant for the same damn thing, but we keep getting so many reputable tip-offs that we can't not look. It's really annoying having to work around all the red tape that the slippery jerk puts in our way."_

_Worse than this, even, is the new, groundbreaking research into the Dark Mark._

_"You can't take the Mark under imperius," says an [undisclosed] cursebreaker. "I've studied that thing every which way for a year, as my Master's thesis, and I can tell you, not only does it hurt like Hell when you're branded, but it breaks any spells you're under prior; Lord Thingy doesn't want his servants to be under glamor or imperius, because that means you're either deceiving him or not fully under his control."_

_If my sources are correct, then the imperius defence is invalid, which means that Mr. Malfoy chose to be a Death Eater! While it is easier to think that such an important and ostensibly good man was being used, we can't discount that it could have been a choice. Consider, also- who would be powerful enough to imperius such an outstanding and accomplished pureblood? And considering the record of muggle-baiting that Lucius accrued in his youth, would an imperius really be necessary?_

_And what of the rumors that Mr. Malfoy slipped a school child, a first year, even, a Dark artifact that nearly killed her and several others, including the Boy-Who-Lived? Aught not those be looked into? What is Dumbledore doing in that school of his that sparks such rumors? Or are they more than rumors?_

_Is there anyone competent and just enough to be a minister? A headmaster? A ministry paper-pusher even? If these are the secrets of the best and brightest members of our society, how will Wizarding Britain survive!_

Harry skimmed the article, more watching the rest of the Hall than actually reading. Draco looked sick, either from what his father had done or what this would mean for the Malfoy family, Harry couldn't tell. Hermione had done the unpardonable; she'd snatched Percy's copy of the newspaper (he was the closest one to her with one) and was reading avidly, and most of the staff were showing various stages of shock. All in all, quite a good reaction. Harry hoped that after all this, the people's anger would be greater than Malfoy's gold.

The next few weeks were interesting, to say the least. Harry didn't even need to keep feeding Rita articles; she was happily digging up dirt on former Death Eaters, with ministry approval, and without Lucius Malfoy pulling his strings, Fudge was quite happy to uphold actual justice. That might also have been because Amelia Bones was holding the threat of a no-confidence vote over his head every time he started considering going back to his old tricks. Death Eater after Death Eater was discovered in ministry employ and arrested, by the simple method of requiring a check of the left arm- after dispelling any glamours, of course. All in all, ministry corruption was at its all time low, and most of the Death Eater children in Slytherin and Ravenclaw had completely subsided, keeping a low profile.

Here and there, knots of speculating Slytherins and gossiping Gryffindors wandered the halls or gathered in the lunch room, and even Snape's patented death glare no. 7, the one that said you would be potion ingredients if you didn't shut up, had reduced effect. But then, considering Snape was a known Death Eater, his authority in general was having reduced effect, as most of the students expected him to be sacked before long. Harry himself thought that was too optimistic a view.

It is to be noted that to his friends, at least, Harry had very little to say concerning the changes sweeping Britain. Not that he didn't have an opinion, of course, but he didn't exactly trust anyone, even his friends, not to accidentally break his confidence. Besides, he'd never shown the slightest interest in politics before, and now was not the best time to start. For one thing, questions might be raised, questions he could not answer, did not have any interest in answering. For another thing, he didn't want to seem too competent; people might make a connection between him and the anonymous source who was so helpful to Rita. That would not be good at all.

So instead he took advantage of the overturn of his Quidditch ban to throw himself into practices, always the first on the pitch and the last off of it, making sure to be seen playing the Golden Gryffindor and chattering and messing about with his friends, so that if anyone even thought of making a connection between him and the mysterious articles, he would always have an alibi.

At night, however, he crept into the library under his invisibility cloak to research, or, his bed curtains carefully plastered with silencing and obscuring charms, sat up long hours by wandlight, scrawling sheets after sheets of notes and drafts. It was time Hogwarts had a spring cleaning.

Two weeks after his last article, when the _Prophet_ finally stopped being interested in printing articles about ministry corruption, the fickle public's interest having mostly subsided, distracted by the latest pureblood scandals, a fresh new article appeared, one which actually made Dumbledore's famous twinkle disappear. It didn't help that the howlers actually began to arrive before the newspapers.

 **"ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE!"** Molly Weasley's voice roared at a pitch usually reserved for chewing out the twins. **"YOU BETTER HAVE A BLOODY GOOD EXPLANATION! DEATH EATERS? BASILISKS? WEREWOLVES? ACROMANTULA? WHAT HAPPENED TO "THE SAFEST PLACE IN BRITAIN"? SO HELP ME MERLIN I'M GOING TO PULL RONALD AND GINNY OUT OF HOGWARTS UNLESS YOU GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!"** At this point, the letter burst into flames. Ron's face was crimson.

 **"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!"** screamed an entirely different voice. **"HOW MUCH MORE ARE YOU NOT TELLING US! WHEN I WENT TO HOGWARTS, IF DIPPET HAD PULLED HALF THE DRAGON CRAP YOU'VE BEEN GETTING BURIED UNDER THE RUG, THE MINISTRY WOULD HAVE HAD HIM IN AZKABAN! "**

 **"I'M PULLING MY SU OUT OF HOGWARTS IF YOU DON'T STEP DOWN!"** roared a third. **"I SENT MY GIRL HERE TO LEARN, NOT TO BE HURT! IF THIS IS THE 'SAFEST PLACE IN BRITAIN', I'M SENDING HER TO DURMSTRANG! DARK ARTS IS BETTER THAN A NICE BED IN ST. MUNGO'S!**

More and more howlers began to appear, some deluging the various faculty members, while most others headed for the headmaster, until at last all the staff and the headmaster together cast a " _maxima tace"_ , silencing them, although still more kept dropping and bursting into flames. The students were amazed.

"What on earth happened?" Dean asked in bewilderment. "Don't they always tell the parents? Why hasn't this happened before?"

"It might be," returned Hermione grimly, "because of this." And she held up the copy of the _Daily Prophet_ she'd just received.

Hogwarts School Unveiled! screamed the headlines

Despite what is often believed, going to Hogwarts is no safer than staying home and taking your OWL's at the ministry, and in some classes, the quality is no better, either. While some classes (Herbology, Arithmancy, and Charms) are indeed quite good, there are other classes that aren't so much.

Muggle studies is a joke- it's not even taught by a muggleborn!- and DADA is notorious for both the bad quality of its classes and of its professors. In the last five years alone there has been only two good professors, one being a werewolf and one being Barty Crouch Jr, a Death Eater, under polyjuice. The others were a possessed former muggle studies teacher, a fraud and pedophile who knocked up the seventh years and then obliviated them (and not just the females, either), and a sadistic ministry-planted birch who tortured the students. A fabulous track record!

Divination is nothing more than a easy O, with the professor always on sherry and the textbook too convoluted to read.

And then there's potions. Professor Snape is a potions genius, the only potion master in history to get his mastery at twenty-five, but he's not the best teacher, simply because he doesn't have patience for the slower students, and is prejudiced against Gryffindors.

Runes, Transfiguration, and Astronomy are some of the best classes in Britain, but the teachers are astonishingly biased against one particular house, namely, Slytherin. In fact, this prejudice is almost school wide, and Slytherins are commonly expelled for doing things that would get your average Gryffindor a slap on the wrist and a week of detention, despite the fact that it is usually the Gryffindors (and a large number of Ravenclaw girls) who bully the other houses, and it is the Gryffindors again who do most of the rulebreaking.

Even disregarding the academic problems, there are actual genuine safety issues at Hogwarts. So much for being the safest place in Britain! From hiding the philosopher's stone in a third floor corridor, without so much as an age line or a specialized lock, only a XXXXX Dark creature and traps that three firsties managed to get through with ease (a decision which ended with two first years in the hospital wing, a dead professor, and a destroyed philosopher's stone) to the Triwizard tournament, which statistically kills eighty-four of it's participants, the trophy almost always awarded posthumously, Hogwarts is full of dangers. When you consider also the petricications of students three years ago, the acromantula nest in the Dark Forest which more than one student has come afoul of, the whomping willow on school grounds (without protection wards), the troll that got into Hogwarts in 1991 and nearly killed a first year girl, the mysterious debilitation of the famous fraud Gilderoy Lockhart, the basilisk rumored to have been released in 1992, (which petrified four students and a cat before finally allegedly being killed by Harry Potter, who, while not available for direct comment, was heard to remark that if it wasn't for phœnix tears, he'd be dead) although Dumbledore has never actually released a statement about the veracity of this rumor, the dementors stationed around Hogwarts in 1993, and Sirius Black's break in, as well as the debacle about four Triwizard champions and the rumor of Voldemort, as well as the fact that the wards should have prevented about 75% of this from happening, even the most negligent of parents should be worried.

Not only this, but Dumbledore has never actually made his students aware of these dangers, nor has he informed the parents. What else is he hiding?

Harry did his best not to grin like a maniac. That is, until Hermione frowned and set down her paper. "Something's fishy here."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, trying not to sound that concerned.

"These don't sound like Rita's writing; you've read her stuff. And since when has she ever written the truth?"

"Since when would Rita let anyone else write under her name?" Harry shot back.

"She might let them if they threatened her or blackmailed her, and God knows there's enough blackmail to work with. Or maybe she thought the headlines would make her look good." Damn, he should have known Hermione would figure it out. "Ron, what do you think?" Hermione continued.

"Sme cudda beph plegerifing uf somphin," commented Ron, who had just taken a bite of scone. "I mean, she could've been plagiarizing someone else's work,"

"You'd think the _Prophet_ would notice that..."

"Since when?"

Hermione looked like she was almost convinced...and then Neville made a quiet comment.

"Rita would never actually write 'V-Vol-Voldemort'." He said, staring at the table.

Damn. Judging by the looks of the staff, Neville was not the only one who'd noticed it either. It was only a matter of time before he was busted.


	3. Confrontations

Ron and Hermione cornered Harry before he'd even gotten to the common room proper.

"Harry?" Hermione was not forceful, but she was definitely insistent. "Harry, can we talk to you?"

"Um..."

"Please? You've been so distant lately."

"Fine." Harry sighed as he heaved his bag onto his shoulder. "Just, can we talk after lunch? I want to study for our potions quiz." He didn't actually need to study, as they were working on a second year level potion, but to tell the truth, he was stalling for time. Oh, his friends wouldn't be mad, per say, but Ron would wonder why Harry hasn't told him in the first place, and Hermione would ask why he hadn't consulted an authority figure first, and honestly, Harry just didn't want to deal with it.

"Ok," Hermione replied. She looked as if she didn't believe him, but that she was willing to play along. Harry was grateful. "You want us study with you?"

Harry rather didn't, but only because he was working through things in his head. "Fine," he replied at last, and the three of them made their way to their usual place in the common room. After a moment, Harry pulled out his second and fifth year potion textbooks, Ron pulled out his fifth year text, and Hermione pulled out the two books and a few supplemental tomes.

They studied in an uncomfortable silence for some time, occasionally making comments to one another. ("Hermione, do we add the tincture of wormwood before or after the sneezewort?" "Look it up, Ron, how are you ever going to learn if I tell you everything?") or getting distracted by the third years, whose free period it was. At last, Harry gave up all pretense of study and dozed off until it was time for double potions with the Slytherins.

Potions was the usual- well, what had become the usual, as of the last couple of weeks. Snape was subdued, simply passing the quizzes out without any of his patented snarky remarks, and most of the Slytherins kept their heads down and focused on their quizzes, instead of on bothering Gryffindors. At last, Snape _accioed_ the written quizzes, his old smirk making a momentary reappearance as Dean Thomas squeaked, his quill trailing ink down his parchment as it flew away. Then he stacked the quizzes on his desk and set them to work brewing the practical from memory, excluding the final three steps to prevent any issues with misuse of classwork, as with love potion and truth serums.

The class, Harry found, was actually fun, now that Malfoy and his goons didn't make it their life work to slip unidentifiable things into his potions, and Snape didn't launch full on sarcasm attacks. He actually got a potion that was the correct color, if a little too thin, and it was not until the middle of lunch that his good mood fell flat, as he remembered that he still had to talk to his friends. It was quite fortunate that he'd left his potion textbook back in the classroom.

"Harry?"

"What is it, Hermione," Harry asked after swallowing his bite of lemon chicken.

"I just realized- do you know anywhere we can go to talk besides the common room? I mean, I just think..."

"I don't." Harry replied thoughtfully. He absentmindedly began pushing his rice around his plate with his fork to avoid meeting Hermione's earnest gaze. All he wanted was a little more time to think, alone, so he could figure out what to say. "We could try the Chamber of Secrets, maybe, or just find an empty classroom."

"Greenhouse 3," interrupted a quiet voice. The little huddle of Gryffindor fifth years turned around.

"Whuth?" Ron asked.

Hermione thumped him absently. "What do you mean, Neville?"

"There's a spot in greenhouse 3 that no one ever goes to, behind the man-eating sequoia," ("Gee, I wonder why?" Ron muttered) "And it's a good place for a quiet conversation. No one'll hear you there, except maybe Professor Sprout, and she won't tell."

"Thanks Neville," said Harry, meaning it. Then he finished his chicken and most of his rice in a few quick bites, gulped his water, wiped his face off with a napkin at Hermione's sharp look, and flung his bag over his shoulder. "So...meet you guys in greenhouse 3 in like ten minutes?" he said. "That way you can finish your food and I can grab my potion textbook from Snape's classroom."

"Sounds good," said Ron, as Hermione was finishing her chocolate pudding. "Neville, you can come too if you want, since you know the place..."

Harry didn't hear whatever Neville had replied, because he was already halfway out of the Great Hall.

Harry took longer than he probably should to fetch his potions textbook, not because the classroom was locked or anything, but rather because he didn't want to have the conversation with Hermione. In fact, the only living thing he met was Mrs. Noris, and the twins had recently taught him how to befriend her: she adored catnip mice.

At last, he was strolling out of the castle, cloak tucked tightly around him to fend off the mild bite of the wind. The grounds, too, were relatively deserted, and he hadn't seen anyone besides two snogging Hufflepuff seventh years and a dirt-smudged and smiling Professor Sprout. Greenhouse three was steamy and hot, rather like a tropical hothouse, and various plants screamed, snapped, shimmered in and out of vision, and followed him with bulbous eyespots as he wandered around, trying to find the man-eating sequoia. And that's when someone grabbed him.

He might have screamed, but before he could do such a thing, lanky arms were yanking him back behind the plant in question, and suddenly he was facing Hermione, her hands on her hips, and Neville, who looked like he would rather be riding a rampaging hippogriff than in between a brawling Golden Trio.

"Ok," said Hermione bossily after Ron had let go of Harry and cast a silencing charm. "Spill. There's obviously more to it than you dropping Rita a couple of anonymous tips. Have you been commissioning her?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Harry told her with a straight face. "I'm not commissioning anyone."

"Harry James Potter-"

"Oh, don't start that," Harry said, still trying to hide the grin that threatened to burst out. "I said 'I'm not commissioning anyone'. I'm not. I'm writing the damn articles myself and blackmailing her into getting them into print."

"That-that-" Hermione seemed to be rendered incoherent. But the equally astonishing reaction was the slow grin which began to spread across Neville's face. The normally shy boy looked nearly jubilant.

"That's bloody brilliant!" Ron cut in, staring at him in shock. "But why didn't you tell us?"

"Yes," chipped in Hermione, having recovered herself. "That's what I'd like to know, too."

Neville looked like he wanted to edge away, as one would from an angry dog. Harry couldn't blame him.

"I-" Harry paused, trying to come up with a polite way to phrase what he was going to say. "I didn't tell you because I didn't think you'd approve. And I didn't tell Ron because I wasn't sure if he could keep a secret. I'm really sorry, you guys. Besides, this is something- well- something I kinda had to do just for me, you know?"

"Is that really how you think of us?!" Hermione's hands had not budged from her hips.

"Tell me honestly, if I had brought that up to you a few weeks ago, would you or would you not tell me that I shouldn't blackmail someone. That we should all just go to Dumbledore, and he'd figure it out. Or on the other hand, you'd get so interested that you would have us in the library researching at all hours and then everyone would figure it out?"

"Well-" Hermione was once again at a loss for words.

"You see? I just- we're always doing stuff together, you know, and once in a while I need a break. You guys probably want time to snog without me, too."

Both Ron and Hermione turned a nice crimson.

"So I was going to do an article about Sirius's innocence next. As in, OMG the heir to the Ancient and Noble House of Black got stuck in Azkaban without a trial. It could happen to any of us!"

Hermione stared at him. And she blinked. And then she started to smile widely. "I'm in. Shall we go to the library?"

Cue groans.

"I wouldn't have told anyone about your project," said Ron at last, after they had sobered somewhat. "You could have asked me."

Harry didn't actually know why he had kept his project from his friends, aside from a sense of wanting to do it himself, unaided by fame or friends. A way to prove to himself that he could, actually, do something towards helping himself. He said at much.

Hermione instantly deflated. "Oh, Harry..."

Ron, to his surprise, was actually more phlegmatic. "Well, whatever stirs your cauldron. But I do wish you'd told me."

A pause. "I...uh...I know I'm not really included in your group...uh...but can I help?"

Everyone turned to look at Neville.

"Sure," said Harry and Hermione at the same time.

Another pause. Ron was, of all people, the one to speak next. "So how can we help?"

"I- you want to?"

"We faced a big honking mountain troll together, Harry, do you think I'd ever have a problem helping?"

Harry was touched.

"Me to," said Neville's cautious voice. "I mean, I di-didn't fight a t-troll, but I'm with you. If you want me."

Another silence. Finally, when it was threatening to grow awkward, Ron broke it. "Alright. Now that all that mushy stuff is out of the way, can we go blackmail a beetle or what?"

Hermione thumped him absently as they meandered back through the tropical greenhouse.

That night, the four of them were sitting in the Rooms of Requirement, with a basket of food Ron had smuggled from the kitchen, and a stack of books that Hermione had smuggled from the library.

Hermione cleared her throat. "All right. How are we going to do this?"

"Well, Rita sent me a file about Sirius, so we can start from there," Harry told them. "No. I: the biggest thing. He didn't get a trial. At all. There's no record of a questioning under veritaserum, there's no record of his wand being checked, nothing."

"Well, didn't you say people already thought that he was the secret keeper? I mean, they probably just jumped to assumptions and took him in," Ron chipped in.

"Which is still wrong." That was Hermione. "Wizards ought to consider people innocent until proven guilty; it's really hard to prove someone _innocent_. That is to say unless you can conclusively prove that someone else did it..." she trailed off, evidently thinking.

"There's also the fact that he was Harry's godfather, wasn't he?" Everyone turned to Neville, wondering where that came from. "I mean, it just occurred to me- did he take the traditional vows?"

"Err, what vows?" Harry asked.

"He's a pureblood, right?"

"Yeah,"

"Well, most purebloods swear an oath on their life and magic to protect their godchild as far as they are able, for as long as they live. It would have literally killed him if he had given your family to You-Know-Who."

Harry stared at him. Then he grabbed a pinch of powder from the pot which had conveniently appeared on the mantle of the fireplace, and tossed it into the fire. "Grimmauld Place?"

The fire sizzled and turned green, and Harry got down on hands and knees in front of the fireplace and stuck his head in.


	4. Sirius Black

"Sirius?" Harry's voice echoed through the empty house. "Are you there?"

For a moment, the old house was totally silent; then there sounded the pounding of feet. "Hey, pup," Sirius said, sounding surprised. "How's it going? Are you ok? I read the _Prophet_ ; did that ministry bitch really use a blood quill on you? Is Snivellus causing you any problems?"

"I-no, Sirius, I'm fine," Harry told him. "I just wanted to ask you a few questions; my friends and I are feeding Rita Skeeter information, and we're hoping we can get your name cleared!

Sirius stared at him, grey eyes wide. Finally, when Harry was starting to worry, a slow smile began to spread all over his face. "That is an amazing idea, pup!" he said. "I'll help any way I can."

"Then...did you take the traditional vows when you became my godfather?"

"Yes pup, I did. Why- ohhh." He started to nod. "Yes, if I had actually betrayed you I would have both died and lost my magic."

"So...I know all this, but for the record: Peter was a Death Muncher?"

"Yes."

"And obviously you're not."

"Oh, hell no!"

"Who cast the Secret Keeper spell?"

"Dumbledore cast it on me and then James switched it from me to Pettigrew after he was gone. The idea about me being a decoy was Lily's, but she wanted the actual Secret Keeper to be Remmy. James thought that Remus wasn't a good choice because I guess he was the obvious traitor, being a werewolf." He barked a bitter laugh.

Harry blinked several times in rapid succession as a mote of soot got in his eye. He _was_ , after all, sitting in a fireplace. "Ok. Did they check your wand when they brought you in for questioning?"

Sirius hesitated. Then some sort of dam seemed to break within him and he began to talk. And talk. "I can barely remember that day; I was in shock. I- oh, yes, I remember...they dragged me into the ministry and they broke my wand in front of me when I didn't talk; I just kept laughing because it was little Peter Pettigrew who had done it, the one whom we had to tutor just to pass his OWL's, the one who we never thought would betray us... They didn't use priori incantem or anything, just broke it. They didn't use veritaserum, either. It hurt so much, too, because I had gone through the auror training program with all these guys, but they didn't hesitate to believe the worst of me. I didn't even get an official questioning for the record, not even a false trial. I just got railroaded to Azkaban and left there for twelve horrible years. Do you know how it feels to be in a place without hot food, without clean clothes, without firewhiskey, without _hope_? All I could think was that I was innocent and that if I gave up and died Peter would have won."

Harry nodded, understanding. "Why do you think Crouch railroaded you?"

"I don't know. Maybe because he thought with me out of the way he could make you a ward of the Ministry. Maybe because he thought he could seize the Black fortune. Maybe because he was trying to blow things out of proportion so that people wouldn't notice that his kid was a closet Death Muncher. Maybe he was just overeager..."

He frowned, then subsided. "Does that help, pup?"

"Yeah, thank you so much!" He grinned. "I'm gonna go unleash hell!"

"Good luck, pup!"

Harry nodded and withdrew his head from the fire, then turned to his friends. "Guys, I got a way to spin this."

* * *

That evening, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville were in The Three Broomsticks, in a corner booth. With them was Rita, with a fruity cocktail and an ordinary (non-charmed) dictaquill.

"So what do you have for me?" she said, adjusted her rhinestone glasses.

"You know how I asked you for files on Sirius Black?" Harry asked.

"Yes..." was her cautious answer.

"Well I have a story for you, and I invite you to do as much as you possibly can to discredit Fudge and Crouch."

"Yes?" she was beginning to wiggle in her seat, as if she sensed how big this story was. A hint of anticipation and excitement bled into her voice.

Harry smirked and drew a muggle folder stuffed with papers and two vials filled with silvery memories out of his featherlight bag. "Ok, here's the deal: Peter Pettigrew is an illegal rat animagus and faked his own death. Sirus Black is innocent of all charges and was framed by Pettigrew. I discovered this in my second year at Hogwarts, but Fudge brushed it under the rug and assumed that I and my friends Ron and Hermione were all confounded...even though Siri had no wand and couldn't cast anything from years in Azkaban."

Rita looked like she wanted to kiss him as she took the papers and vials.

* * *

The next morning, _Daily Prophets_ began to shower down into dishes of bacon and bowls of porridge. The hall reverberated with breakfast-table discussions, as everyone snatched for the same copies, having grown used to groundbreaking headlines.

Harry noticed with interest that Dumbledore seemed relieved that the article was not about his mistakes. The relief seemed to rapidly melt away, however, as he began to read the article.

"Hey Harry!"

Harry, who had been taking more notes in his journal, hurriedly looked up. "What is it, Hermione?"

"Rita outdid herself," Hermione responded, shoving the paper into his hand.

_Fudge is Corrupt! Sirius Black Framed!_ screamed the headlines.

_Sirius Black, the traitor who supposedly gave his best friends, the Potters, to You-Know-Who, in a shocking turn of events, was discovered to be innocent. Yes, innocent! Framed by his friend Pettigrew, the real Secret Keeper, Mr. Black spent twelve years in Azkaban, the most terrible Wizarding prison in the world, without ever having been given a trial!_

_Mr. Black was apprehended, after the first war, after a confrontation with Mr. Pettigrew, who allegedly screamed "Sirius, how could you!" before being blown up, along with thirteen muggles. However, the Department of Magical Forensics never cast a corpus locator to find his body; they only collected his finger to send it back to his mother. Meanwhile, the aurors who took Mr. Black into custody denied him basic Wizarding rights: his wand was never checked, nor was he allowed questioning under veritaserum, nor was he legillimized, nor was his arm checked for the Dark Mark. What kind of ministry would railroad a member of an Ancient and Noble family to Azkaban! What could they possibly hope to get out of that? Mr. Black suggests that they did it to seize the Black fortune; he even insinuates that they might have done it to get their hands on his godson, the Boy-Who-Lived. Does the Ministry have a response to this heinous accusation?_

_It is even more worth mentioning that the aurors who took Mr. Black in were his friends; but rather than being lenient, or even doing their jobs, they went out of their way to trample on his rights._

_This, however, brings up another point: Mr. Black was sworn godfather to the Boy-Who-Lived, with all pureblood oaths that that entails. He would have died on the spot if he had betrayed the Potters! So why did no one come forward about this? Who is trying to cover up such a horrible injustice? Well, the answer is our own minister! Cornelius Fudge was given the opportunity to expunge this horrible blot on our ministry's history three years ago, when Harry Potter and his friends apprehended Peter Pettigrew on the Hogwarts grounds. (Disturbingly, he had been posing as a pet for one of the students; one wonders why the headmaster didn't have anti-animagi wards, or even just animagus detection wards, since one could argue that anti-animagi wards could prove problematic for the famous Transfiguration teacher Minerva Mcgonagall.) However, instead of making sure justice was done or even just opening the case again, Fudge completely ignored the evidence, even going so far as to accuse our boy hero of being confounded. (Never mind that Black had no wand and was unable to cast anything). Worse still, it isn't as though Fudge has not done other things like this, like having Barty Crouch kissed before he could testify to being a Death Eater and trying to put the innocent groundskeeper of Hogwarts in Azkaban (because a basilisk that had been under the school for years due to Dumbledore's negligence got out and attacked students) either._

_If justice is no longer carried out by our minister, aren't we obligated to call for a vote to remove us? How many innocent people have to go to Azkaban before the public takes matters into their own hands! And are our children safe if an illegal rat animagus can masquerade as a pet at Hogwarts for ten years without being caught?_


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: I know that in canon Hagrid was only ever sent to Azkaban once; however, in this fanfiction he was sent there overnight after it was opened for the first time, to make sure he "learned his lesson" before they snapped his wand.

Harry was quite pleased by the reaction to the article on Sirius Black. If anything, discussion increased a thousand-fold, and Minister Fudge was facing the possibility of a vote of no confidence, as Madame Bones was outraged at the miscarriages of justice that the article had unearthed.

He was even more happy when a deliriously happy Rita Skeeter, who had apparently gotten an enormous raise due to her shocking, and true, articles, went and did some digging on her own, presenting him with the resulting sheets of notes for his perusal. From there, Harry shared them with the rest of the Golden Trio, and Neville. Hermione promptly went to the library and didn't come out the entire weekend except to eat and sleep, while Harry and Ron went to talk to Hagrid and Neville owled his Gran.

The following week, they met up with Rita again, this time in Honeydukes (so they wouldn't be seen meeting at the same place. Hermione wanted to give her an article discussing the origins of muggleborn magic, but Harry and Rita talked her down in favor of doing an article on Hagrid's unjust expulsion, since it would be related to the previous article, and it was more about Fudge's incompetence and corruption than about introducing new and shocking theories. So after Harry, Hermione, and Rita compared notes, and Neville sneaked Rita to Hagrid's hut in a jar for an impromptu interview, a new article was ready to shake the Wizarding world.

_Basilisk Under Hogwarts Since Salazar Slytherin's Time!_

Harry, who had been digging into a bowl of mango slices, took the latest Daily Prophet from an excitable post owl and fed it a piece of bacon, then unrolled the newspaper as it flew away. "Oh, interesting- hey Ron, Mione!"

Two heads swiveled around in the middle of a conversation. "Oh, did the Prophet come? What is it this time?"

Harry grinned, displaying the newspaper. "What do you think? It looks like she did a good job..."

Hermione sniffed; she was fine with working with Rita, but she hadn't quite forgiven her for the Harmony Grange thing from the previous year.

Rita had indeed done a good job, and Dumbledore was looking decidedly sour. Not that he didn't deserve it.

_In the process of researching the unfortunate miscarriage of justice involving Sirius Black, this reporter discovered some odd anomalies in the judicial system, and in the records of the so-called safest place in Britain. Upon a little research, a truly shocking and grim story was unearthed._

_According to legend, when Hogwarts was first being built, each of the founders built a secret place in the castle, available only to their heirs: Godric Gryffindor built an armory and training room, Rowena Ravenclaw built a library, Helga Hufflepuff built a recreation room, and Salazar Slytherin built a hidden room called the Chamber of Secrets, deep beneath the school. In the armory, so they say, are legendary enchanted weapons; in the library there are books written by the founders themselves, in the recreation room, according to legend, there is a chalice which, when filled with water, transforms the water into a miraculous potion that heals even the dying...and in the Chamber, there is said to be a monster, to be under the command of the descendants, for good or ill (though supposedly it was put under the school so it could be woken to "purge" the school of muggleborns._

_Years ago, when Armando Dippet was headmaster of Hogwarts, the chamber was elegedly opened by one Rubeus Hagrid, a Gryffindor third year known to be fond of large animals, and the thirteen-year-old was sent to Azkaban after a girl named Myrtle, (nicknamed 'Moaning Myrtle') was killed. But the facts on record don't add up. How could a third year find the entrance to the Chamber. And how could he open it, if he wasn't a parcelmouth? The answer the ministry came up with was that his acromantula, Aragog, was responsible for the petrifications and death. But how does an acromantula, a highly venomous spider which kills by biting, petrify two children and kill another...without leaving a single mark!_

_Upon asking Mr. Hagrid about these charges, the answer turned out to be far more sinister. Enclosed is a very short interview with the friendly groundskeeper._

_RS: So, I'm doing a story on the petrifications at Hogwarts, and the official story isn't adding up. So I want to know, what's your version?_

_RH: Aragog (the spider) never done it, miss. It was Tom, Tommy Riddle, and that pet of his._

_RS: Tom Riddle? Would you mind elaborating?_

_RH: 'Course. He was an odd one, Tom, head boy and all. Really charmin', but I alwus knew he was not what everyone thought. Aragog'd- he's a spider I've 'ad since 'e was an egg- 'd been scared fur some time, tole me there was a monster in the castle. So I jus want'd to get him somewhere's safe, but 'e was getting too big ter smuggle out in me shirt, so I 'id him in a cupboard so I could get 'im out ter the forest after dark an' let 'im go. Tom found me. I guess I wus jus' convenient, ya know. 'E took me to 'Fessor Dippet and tole him I killed the girl. If 'ed given me a chance, I could've tole him Tom did it; 'e's a parcelmouth, an' 'e 'ad a pet basilisk; I asked Myrtle 'ow she died; she loves tellin' that story. But Tom wus the smart, hansom, charming head boy and I wus the Gryffindor 'af-blood who liked big things with teeth an' dinna 'av good grades. They snapped me wand; nowart but Dumbledore believed me. Sent me ta Azkaban, too, an' that place's 'orrible._

_RS: Oh, my. Thank you so much for sharing that, Mr Hagrid._

_RH: No problem, I'm alwus glad ter help._

_So, as is now revealed, the ministry sent a thirteen-year-old to Azkaban, without getting the facts. Tom Riddle went on to become You-Know-Who, while the innocent Mr. Hagrid had his wand snapped. But that's not the worst of it. Two years ago, the Chamber of Secrets was opened again, and several students and a cat were petrified. Disregarding common sense, Fudge threw Mr. Hagrid in Azkaban again, just to be seen doing something. When the petrifications didn't stop, he still didn't let him out; it took an intervention from Albus Dumbledore himself to get him released._

_Although getting Mr. Hagrid free was really the least Mr. Dumbledore could do, seeing as it was something of his fault that the monster was released._

Harry chanced a look up, to see that several of the staff and some of the students looking upset and in denial at this. Harry's smile widened.

_To start with, Mr. Dumbledore had been alive and teaching at Hogwarts during the last round of petrifications, and was, as Mr. Hagrid stated, the only one who seemed not to believe that he had opened the Chamber. He also seemed to know who had actually done it, according to an off-the-record comment by someone who would like to remain anonymous. (That had been Minerva Mcgonagall). But even having all of the evidence at hand, even knowing the legend of the Chamber (and probably being able to guess what the monster was, as there are few things that petrify wizards without a mark, and fewer still have connections to Slytherin) Dumbledore swept it under the rug just as surely as Fudge did. He didn't ask Myrtle for her testimony for who she died, he didn't warn students to carry hand-mirrors, he didn't hire an Indian parcelmouth cursebreaker to clean out the Chamber; no, he let a twelve-year-old fight the basilisk for him, according to rumors at Hogwarts. Even if that twelve-year-old was Harry Potter, that is still horribly negligent and careless._

_I took the liberty of having a word with Mr. Potter, and the response truly fascinated me._

_RS: So Mr. Potter, what can you tell me about the Chamber of Secrets?_

_HP: It's creepy and peaceful at the same time._

_RS: What do you mean?_

_HP: Well it's kind of hard to forget running from a sixty-foot snake, but the place itself isn't that bad; it's really kind of pretty. There's a watery green light sort of like in the Slytherin common room, and there are columns decorated with carved snakes with jewels for eyes that make it look like a pureblood mansion or something. You can study by wand-light without being disturbed._

_RS: What do you mean running from a sixty-foot snake!?_

_HP: Well, it was probably actually closer to fifty feet, but it wasn't like I had a tape measure or something when I was down there fighting it. Basically one of my friends had found a magic artifact that coerced her to release the basilisk, so Ron and I had to go down there to save her. We should have gone to a competent teacher like Mcgonagall or Snape or something but we got Lockhart instead, and he tried to obliviate us with Ron's broken wand so he could take credit for finding the chamber. Unfortunately, because he's not a very good wizard anyway and the wand was actually broken, he ended up blowing up the passageway and trapping me in the passageway, with Ron on the other side. So I went into the Chamber, and there was my friend, possessed, and the basilisk, which attacked me. So I basically ran around the chamber dodging the stupid thing while it hissed "HUNGRY! LET ME RIP YOU! LET ME REND YOU! KILL!" I only survived because of Dumbledore's phoenix; I had basically just been running around blindly trying to listen for the snake and swinging at it with a big clumsy sword I found in the Chamber, like an honest-to-goodness Gryffindor, but Fawkes put out it's eyes and healed me when it knicked me with it's fangs, so thankfully I'm still alive._

_RS: Where is the basilisk now?_

_HP: Lying dead in the Chamber under like five preservation charms. I didn't really know what to do with it, you know, except maybe sell it to the goblins or use it to bribe Snape for extra potions lessons._

_RS: Do you still go down there?_

_HP: Hell, yeah, it's quieter than the Common Room when you need to study, and I'm the only one who knows the passwords. Although it's a little odd trying to work on your charms homework next to a very large snake corpse. Kinda morbid._

_RS: Do you ever feel like you don't belong there, because you're a Gryffindor?_

_HP: Nah, doesn't bother me. I sort of earned my right to be there, wouldn't you say?_

_RS: I guess I can see that. I don't suppose you could let me in to take pictures?_

_HP: Well, ideally that would be Dumbledore's call, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind. I ought to warn you, you have to slide down a giant pipe in the abandoned bathroom on the second floor._

_As you can see from this fascinating interview, the Chamber of Secrets is indeed full of mysteries...and dangers. One wonders why it is a boy who did the reconnoitering the headmaster should have done. What does this mean for our country if our children fight monsters while the faculty looks on?_

_For more on the Chamber of Secrets, go to page 9._

_For more on the fight with the basilisk, go to page 20_

_For an exclusive with Mr. Potter's friends, go to page 27_

_For full-color pictures of the Chamber of Secrets, go to page 30_

Over the next few weeks, Rita Skeeter came up with more and more articles on her own, and nearly all of them were both scandalous and able to further their cause: **_Dumbledore and Grindelwald, Lovers! Is the Greater Good Truly_** _ **Good?** ,_ and **_Breaking News:_** ** _Muggleborns Come From Squibs!_** The Ravenclaws had debates every day, and the other journalists at the _Prophet_ were actually involuntarily helping his cause, as Rita's true but controversial articles were driving record-breaking sales. The Death Eaters, and Voldemort, were curiously subdued, and though Harry assumed rationally that they were lying low, he began to worry more and more that they were only biding their time, waiting for the day they could strike.

It was on a cold, drizzly, drippy morning in late November, notible mostly just because of its utter miserableness, that there came the headline which was to change his life.

_Breaking_ _News_ , the headlines screamed. _The_ _Savior of the Wizarding World, Abused!_

Harry felt sick as he began to read the article, an article that he had certainly _not_ fed Rita. An article that detailed all the nasty bits of his childhood, from the cupboard to Aunt Petunia's frying pan, endless chores, and Uncle Vernon's physical abuse- always in private, and only hard enough to bruise in places that didn't show. Because the Dursleys had to be _normal_ , didn't they. An article that told of all their attempts to beat the magic out of him, and of Dudley's bullying which everyone seemed to turn a blind eye to.

Harry hunched in his chair, all appetite forgotten. It isn't exactly easy to eat when your worst secrets are suddenly spilled for the whole world to see, even if it did make Dumbledore's already hard life harder by focusing on the fact that he had allowed a child, and the wizarding boy hero, to be abused without lifting a finger. Damn, couldn't Rita ruin Dumbledore's reputation without bringing him into it, painting him as a victim who couldn't even protect himself from muggles, let alone Voldemort? This was _not_ going to be good, especially since the Dark faction would probably try to use this as an opportunity to have some pureblood Death Eater 'adopt' him.

Although when the howlers for Dumbledore started pouring in, Harry had to admit that something inside of him warmed, just a little. It was gratifying to know that there were at least _some_ people that cared about his welfare.

Indeed, the rest of the Gryffindors- the rest of the student body, in fact- looked horrified, and some of the girls were in tears. Even the Slytherins were shocked.

"Oh, Harry, is this true?" Hermione asked, voice trembling.

It was time to face the music, then. It wasn't as if he could deny it anymore. "Yeah, 'Mione, it's true."

Hermione pulled him into a crushing hug, and for a moment, the Golden Trio simply sat together, not reading, not gossiping, just comforting Harry and ignoring the rest of the Great Hall and the howlers still shouting in the distance:

"ALBUS DUMBLEDORE! YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF, LEAVING A CHILD TO BE ABUSED!"

"WHY WOULD YOU DO SUCH A THING?! ARE YOU GOING SENILE? PERHAPS WE SHOULD HAVE A HEADMASTER BETTER SUITED TO _PROTECTING THE STUDENTS,_ HMM? IF I'D KNOWN WHAT YOU WERE DOING TWO YEARS AGO, MY GIRLS WOULD BE GOING TO BEUXBATONS, TO HELL WITH THE COST!"

Molly's howler, though, was the loudest and most angry of them all.

"ALBUS PERCIVAL WULFRIC BRIAN DUMBLEDORE, WE APPLIED FOR ADOPTION! BUT _NO_ , HARRY'S NOT SAFE ANYWHERE BUT THE DURSLEYS, YOU SAID. HE NEEDED THE BLOOD PROTECTION, YOU SAID. WHAT PROTECTION?! IF THOSE HORRIBLE PEOPLE COULD ABUSE HIM ALL THOSE YEARS, I DON'T SEE HOW THAT'S _PROTECTION_! AND YOU NEVER EVEN CHECKED UP ON HIM?! AFTER LEAVING HIM ON A DOORSTEP, IN THE WINTER, I MIGHT ADD AND WHEN HE'S OLD ENOUGH TO TODDLE! YOU EITHER RESIGN THIS MONTH OR I'M PULLING ALL MY CHILDREN OUT OF HOGWARTS, ALL OF THEM! I'LL SEND THEM TO DURMSTRANG, IF I HAVE TO, JUST AS LONG AS THEY ARE SAFE FROM _YOU_. AND YOU CAN _FORGET_ ABOUT _ANY_ OF THE WEASLEYS JOINING YOUR STUPID LITTLE RESISTANCE GROUP AFTER WHAT YOU DID! WE MIGHT EVEN START OUR OWN!"

Ron's face was as red as though he had been dunked in red paint, although he also looked a little pleased. But Harry was looking more and more as though he was going to break down, and Ron and Hermione, seeing this, grabbed the one of the copies of the article to read later and guided the boy out and to the Rooms of Requirement, Neville following. Behind them, the entire school, (except for Seamus, whose water-to-whiskey transfiguration spell of the night before had worked a little too well, landing him in the hospital wing) were gossiping, and Molly was still screaming with barely even a break: "AND I TOLD YOU THAT FRED AND GEORGE HAD TO BREAK _BARS_ OFF HIS WINDOW TO GET HIM OUT OF THAT PLACE THREE YEARS AGO, AND YOU JUST SENT HIM BACK! AND ANOTHER THING, YOU BASTARD...!

But by that point, Harry and his friends were out of earshot. They walked though the halls in silence, Harry white and subdued, reaching the Rooms in what seemed like far more time than it normally took, although part of that was probably because Harry was struggling not to cry the entire time. At last they were in the Room, painted soothing blues and greens and filled with plush pillows on this occasion, and Harry slumped down on a pillow and stared at nothing.

"Harry, it's going to be ok," Hermione told him, her bossy voice unusually soft. "it's horrible right now, but just think: in light of that, who would _dare_ send you back to the Dursleys?"

"Everyone knows," replied Harry brokenly. "everyone knows I'm so weak that I can't even defend myself from my own family."

"Oh, Harry!"

"Harry, you're not weak," Ron said, sounding more serious than Harry had even heard him. "How could you defend yourself when you didn't even know magic existed, because those bastards had never told you? How could you defend yourself when there's a corrupt Ministry of Magic looking for any reason to expel you? Harry, you were a kid! A baby! You're not weak for being abused!"

Harry lowered his head, a single tear sliding down his cheek. "I...thank you you two. I don't- you shouldn't-"

"Shouldn't what, defend you?" Ron said. "Harry-"

"It's not just that."

Both of the other Gryffindors fell silent at once, allowing Harry to go on.

"It's, Merlin help me, who is going to take me now?"

"Sirius, probably," Ron said, not comprehending the problem. "Since the Dursleys and Dumbledore are both persona non grata."

"But..." Harry could barely speak. "Even with the Ministry being cleaned up, wizards are still human. The Dark Faction is going to try to get a hold of me, any way possible. If that means bribing someone to let a dark family adopt me, well...it might be a problem."

Hermione winced. "Yeah, I guess. I can see how that might be a problem. Although if it comes to that, you can probably just bribe the court to do the opposite."

"Hermione!" Ron burst out, seemingly scandalized, although that probably had more to do with the fact that Hermione, rulefollower extraordinaire, had just suggested something illegal.

Hermione just said "hush you," to Ron and drew Harry into another of her warm hugs as he began to cry in earnest. By this time, Neville had arrived to help comfort the 'Chosen One'.

It was lunchtime when they left the room, and the normally-collected Hermione was nearly in a tizzy at missing their morning classes, until she learned from Parvati Patil that the school had been in such an uproar that classes had simply been canceled for the day. Then she was disappointed. All the same, she ate with Harry and the other two boys, trying to keep Romilda Vane occupied so she wouldn't go and 'comfort' Harry and end up making him more confused and upset, while meanwhile Ron read the _Daily Prophet_ article again (this time with Harry reading over his shoulder) and Neville simply sat supporting them in silence.

And that's when a new voice interrupted them. It was Seamus Finnigan, and he was holding one of the troublesome articles. "Harry? Is this true?" he began slowly, blue eyes sheepish.

"Give me a second, Seamus," Harry replied; he had been getting more and more angry both at the invasion of his privacy and at the lurid detail Rita had put in her article, and was just about ready to lose his temper. "I think it's time that I went to squash a bug. Hang on, guys," and he rose, about to go.

Ron, who had continued to read past the first fateful article, blanched as he said that, setting down his newspaper and, for once, looking as though he couldn't finish his mashed potatoes. "...someone's beat you to it, mate," he said at last, in a curious voice.

Harry could not believe his ears. " _What_? Where's that?"

Ron, for answer, wordlessly passed the paper over to him, a long index finger pointing out the article in the newspaper which proclaimed the death of one Rita Julietta Skitter.

Harry blanched. "Oh, gods," he whispered at last. "Oh, gods. I put her in danger, didn't I?"

Ron had no suitable reply, and so they sat in silence, while Seamus stared.


	6. Chapter 6

The next few days were torture. Harry couldn't get away from the whispers, from the pitying looks, from the gossip that wreaked more havok in the halls than the poltergeist Peeves. It wasn't just the fact that his secret was now out, either- now he would be, even more than he had been before, an easy target for Voldemort and his minions. And he couldn't stop thinking about Rita Skeeter. She had not, perhaps, been his favorite person, but he had to admit that she was sweet in her own way (if unscrupulous) and she had helped him a lot, during his rhetorical campaign. And besides, no one (well, except perhaps for Voldemort or Bellatrix) deserved to die.

He was worried about his foster parents, too. He was only fifteen, too young to apply for magical emancipation, and he knew perfectly well that this weakness would give the Dark a perfect opportunity to exploit, even if he had hamstrung the movement with the help of Rita's acid pen. Galleons, after all, had a much stronger voice than words. And even had they not, he did not want any of Dumbledore's direct allies getting him either, or, God forbid, Dumbledore himself. The old man, after all, was not exactly trustworthy, although he would probably not be as bad as a Death Eater. Probably. And yet somehow, even with Rita's articles and his shady past, the Wizarding World still revered him as someone approximating a god.

Sirius's trial was still going through, too and Harry couldn't help but worry. The Ministry had been forced to clean up their act immensely, but that didn't stop him from wondering if all the closet Voldie supporters had been taken down.

Not only that, but if it had just been the revelations about his home life, his concerns about where he would go from here, and Rita's death he had to worry about, he might (might, mind you) have been able to cope. But now that Rita was dead, more reporters were filling up the hole that she had left behind, most of them even more unscrupulous than she had been (if that was possible). And most of them were _not_ very complementary to him. The _Prophet_ seemed still to be toeing the party line, making him and Dumbledore out to be mad and dangerous, or (even worse, in Harry's opinion) making him seem like a poor, mentally ill victim of muggle abuse, and using his example to say that all muggleborns should be taken away from their parents and raised by responsible wizards for the good of the Wizarding world. Not one of them covered the fact that Voldemort was still at large. Some of the reporters even blamed _him_ for Rita's death, which hurt as much as it made him resentful. It was, after all, kind of true- he _had_ put her in the line of fire- but their callus and mostly-untrue accusations scored him to the bone, and he couldn't do anything about them. Could he?

He said as much to Hermione.

"You could hire another reporter or two," she said. "Or give an interview or a statement, I guess."

"I'm not hiring anyone else to get k-killed because of me," Harry responded, voice shaking ever so slightly. "As for an interview, well...what do you want to bet that they're going to take my words out of context and make me out to be an even worse person than they already have? Or maybe they'll just use a quik-quotes pen and do away with what I said entirely!"

"They can't do that!"

"Can they? R-Rita did, and nobody ever called her out on that. And they've been writing fictional stories about me ever since before I was born. Either there's no Wizarding laws in place to stop that kind of thing from happening, or they just assumed- rightly- that nobody would be able to stop them from making money off of me because I'm an orphan."

"That's criminal!" Hermione's cry made everyone else in the library look around in startlement, and Madame Pince pursed her lips, looking as if she wanted to come over there and crack the over the head with her great record book for shouting in her library. Fortunately, she only called "Tone it down!" and went back to the pile of books for the Restricted Section that she was cataloguing. "I'm checking the laws on that," Hermione continued, eyes narrowed. "And anyway, even if you don't want to endanger another reporter, couldn't you still put something in the paper yourself?"

"Like what?" Harry asked, but he was beginning to grow interested. "I can't just send in a letter as Harry Potter, and they *probably* wouldn't listen to anything I sent in under a pseudonym... I mean, a letter to the editor is all well and good, and it would be great to start with, but I need something everyone will read..."

Hermione's cinnamon eyes began to shine. "I've got it!" she paused, then cast some anti-eavesdropping charms, despite the fact that they had already had one up. You could never be too careful, after all. "You could disguise yourself, and try to get on the _Prophet_ staff. Then you could 'interview' yourself. People would read it, because it was an interview with Harry Potter, but you could make sure that no one actually twisted your words the wrong way, because _you_ would be the interviewer!"

Harry stared at her. "Would that even work? They wouldn't just hire a random wizard out of the blue..."

"If you had access to the Boy-Who-Lived for an interview, they'd bend over backwards for you, see if they don't!"

"What if they find out who I really am? I mean, I don't want to just chug polyjuice, because then someone else would still be in danger, plus they'd get the credit for what I do. Besides, they'd figure it out if they suddenly had a contract to work for the _Daily Prophet_..."

"I wasn't suggesting polyjuice. There are other ways to disguise yourself, you know, even to create a false identity if necessary. The goblins could be helpful too, maybe; we just need to research this."

"The goblins?"

"Yeah, you don't want to falsify records without involving the goblins; they get really pissed off, or so I've heard. I've only been to Gringotts a few times, since I don't exactly have a vault. Goblins are fascinating, though; have you heard-?"

Harry cut her off. "So even if I _did_ have an alternate identity, what would I do then? Somehow I don't think just waltzing into the main office of the _Prophet_ is a good idea?"

"I'm pretty sure you just have to send a query letter. If they follow up and schedule an audience, you're good to go. If not, send another query or bribe some people in charge. If all else fails you could just buy the whole thing out."

"Um. Say that again?"

"Query, send a follow up if they don't reply, try bribes, or buy it out and publish whatever you want."

"How on earth would I _buy out_ the _Prophet_? I barely have enough in my trust vault to cover my Hogwarts years!"

Hermione stared at him. "First off, there's the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets. You could just render it and sell it through the goblins; it's worth a whole lot. Secondly, you're the Boy-Who-Lived. You could seriously borrow however much you wanted from the goblins, or pretty much anyone else, too. People have probably also sent you gifts and things. Besides, I researched your family. You're one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, which means you're from one of the richest and most powerful families in Wizarding Britain. You could also ask Sirius for help; he'd probably jump at the chance to help you buy out the _Prophet_! He'd think of it as the best prank ever. So yeah, I think you could do it if you have to."

Harry stared at her, shell-shocked. "I didn't...I don't..."

Hermione's eyes softened, and she reached out and pulled Harry into a hug. "We'll figure this out, Harry. We probably won't need to buy it out anyway, not if we can figure out how to disguise you and give you a believable name. We'll just make sure that the _Prophet_ hires you."

"But wouldn't they just see through it? How deep would the disguise have to go?"

"Well, we'd have to mask your magical core, that's for sure. Otherwise, probably some aging potions and then maybe some potions to change your skin tone and hair color, maybe even some spells to temporarily change your face... You can't just go around looking like an older Harry Potter, so it'd have to be pretty deep. And maybe use muggle makeup for your scar?"

Harry was about to make some reply to that when an idea hit him with all the force of a very large freight train. _It'd have to be pretty deep..._ "Hermione, what if my disguise was female?"

The girl whipped around, actually dropping her muggle pencil. "What?!"

"It's just an idea," was Harry's self-conscious reply. It was, after all, a very odd idea, and he definitely didn't want to become a woman (no offense to Hermione) but an identity that was totally unlike his own in every way could definitely come in handy. Even if it had breasts, however uncomfortable the thought. "I mean, no one would really expect a grown woman would be the 'Boy-Who-Lived' in disguise, not least because no one would expect me to willingly become a woman."

Hermione stared at him for so long that he thought that he'd broken her, and then finally squealed. "Oh, Harry, that's a great idea! Let me just find some literature on how to turn into a woman, and then we'd have to change your basic looks and magical signature, and then we talk to the goblins, and-"

"Hold on!" Her enthusiasm was actually rather worrying. First things first, start with the articles. Harry still hadn't thought the whole woman thing through. He knew better than to say that, though. "If we're going to put all this effort into making an elaborate disguise just to pull the wool over the _Prophet_ top editor's eyes, we got to figure out what I want to get into the newspaper in the first place. And what's a query?"

"A query letter is a letter saying what you want to write and why the _Prophet_ (or whatever newspaper you're pitching) should publish it. As for what you want to get into the newspaper, you'll have to figure that one out on your own. So how about you write the articles you want to publish, and I start working on a disguise?"

"That...sounds good, actually." Harry pulled his 'art sketchbook' out of his bag and frowned down at it, thinking. What _did_ he want to publish? Well, the interview would be first, and he would have to cover his home life, Voldie, his Death Eaters, Dumbledore, and the adventures every year at Hogwarts; that was what the public would want to hear, and he also had to make sure that everyone knew Voldemort was back. Then, too, he would need to run an article about Dumbledore, and one about muggleborns, and one about muggles in general, and one about dark, light, and grey magic, and so on, and there were multiple social issues that he would eventually like to address. Oh, and he also wanted to ream the Wizarding public out for letting the _Prophet_ and Flourish and Blotts make money on slander and fantasies written about an orphan. The interview would have to be first though. Dear Lord, writing an interview of himself was most definitely weird. But then, on the one-to-ten weirdness scale, turning into a woman _definitely_ surpassed that...

Meanwhile, Hermione was silently summoning a stack of law and glamor and disguise books, and had already pulled out a muggle notepad. And Harry felt, deep inside his soul, that this might just give them the backing and plans necessary to win the war. He could do this. For his friends. For his teachers. For the Wizarding World. Hell, even for Rita. He was certainly good enough at writing...no all he had to do was make the public read what he wrote, which wouldn't exactly be easy. Still, if it was easy, it wouldn't be worth it, would it? Even if he had to have breasts to do it.

* * *

"I've got it!"

"Got what, Hermione?" Harry asked, looking up from the stack of notes and partially completed articles.

"I found a glamour potion that will do what you need. It's got a polyjuice base, but then it's adapted so that you don't look like any one person; basically you just have a body type similar to the people whose hair you used."

One of Harry's eyebrows shot up. "...and where did you find that again?"

Hermione muttered something that sounded like "in the Restricted Section," but before Harry could tease her, (or ask for more details) she had already moved on to explaining: "I'm pretty sure I can brew it, but you'll need to figure out what you want your body type to be, and I do have to warn you that the ingredients are rather expensive."

"That's fine; I'll just get a Gringotts draft," Harry replied, finding himself nervous once again. Visions of the polyjuice mishap in Second Year drifted through his mind; what if he were to get a hair from something worse than a cat? Would it be reversible with a potion that was _more_ advanced than polyjuice? Then something else occurred to him. "How long does it last?"

"An hour, at least that's what I think this says," replied Hermione, who was studying the potion-stained page.

"You can't read it?" he asked nervously.

"I can read most of it. It's just that the page got splattered with potion," Hermione said, staring at it again as if a firm look would make it give up all its secrets.

Harry was definitely not sure of this, for the record. All the same, he (and a _very_ reluctant Ron) helped owl order and chop ingredients for the potion while Hermione actually prepared it, and at the close of the required two weeks (the potion took less time than polyjuice, due to the use of kitsune whisker instead of fluxweed and stewed cicada instead of lacewing) they had a bubbling, murky potion that did not look substantially different than polyjuice except that the color (despite the fact that the last ingredient had not yet been added) was a violent blue, which, according to Hermione's notes, was at least correct.

Harry blinked at the mixture. "How long will this keep?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, do we have to brew a unique mixture every time?"

"No, it should keep for a week when decanted, a month if put in a cold box, and nearly indefinitely if put under a Apprentice's Stasis, which supposedly won't hurt it; it's not finicky like Felix Felicis or something."

"Felix felicis?" asked Harry, who had not heard of the potion.

"Liquid luck," Ron filled him in. "It makes you lucky as long as it lasts, but it can't be used in competitions or elections or anything, and it's super expensive and hard to brew."

"It would be amazing to escape from Potter luck though," said Harry almost wistfully. Then he looked back at the cauldron bubbling in the center of the Chamber of Secrets. (They had forgone brewing in Myrtle's bathroom proper because it wasn't exactly sanitary and Myrtle might have bothered or told on them, and the only other place that they knew of that was secret was the Chamber itself. Both Ron and Harry had been quite creeped out in the spooky old hideout, especially considering the conditions that had brought them to the Chamber last, but Hermione said she actually quite liked the quiet, once she had gotten over the enormous snake corpse in the middle of the floor.) "So how is this going to work?"

"You need two strands of hair- or, well, anything, but hair is probably ideal- from two different people whose features you want to combine. Think about it sort of like you'll end up looking like the kid of the two people you've chosen, and you'll be the same age as you are now, so we'll probably have to use some aging spells." Hermione was busy decanting the potion. "Oh, by the way, both of the people have to be witches if you're going to be a witch."

"Harry's going to be a witch?!" asked Ron, mildly horrified. He had been told of their basic need for disguise, but not their plans, because Harry was of the opinion that the fewer who knew, the better.

"Yeah, I am," Harry told him reluctantly. "I needed a disguise that no one would see through, so I'm going for as different from my regular body as possible."

Ron blanched. "Right. Better you than me, mate."

"There's nothing wrong with being a witch!" Hermione snapped at once, still trying to scrape out the last drops of the altered polyjuice into another jar.

"There is when you're originally a wizard," Ron replied, still looking a little pale. "I don't particularly want to be in the position of potentially fancying my best mate pretending to be a witch."

Hermione thumped him, but she was grinning a little.

"So how much do we have and how much is a working dose?" asked Harry, who was trying to get them back on track. "Will we need to rebrew this anytime soon?"

"There's enough for fifty doses before we have to rebrew, so that's not going to be a problem. That said, any new batch will probably come up with a new combination of the features that you want, so you're going to have to do the last step all at once."

"You just decanted it," Harry pointed out.

Hermione blushed. "I can just pour it right back. Whose hair are you going to add?"

"Lavender and Parvati," Harry replied reluctantly, drawing out a vial with two hairs.

"Are you sure those are the right hairs, mate?"

"Yeah. I did the detection spell we learned from Fake-Moody last year," Harry responded. "They're the right ones."

"And they're ok with that?"

"What do you think, Ron?" that was Hermione. "They can't know."

"Oh, right. Um, you do know that if we were making actual polyjuice instead of an adaptation without their consent it would be against the law?"

"Good to know." Harry looked back at the cauldron, once again filled with slimy blue fluid of a mud-like consistency. "Is just the two hairs ok, or do I need more because there's more potion?"

"It might help a little, but in the end it's just the fact that you're putting it in, not how much you're putting in. Make sure to stir it well."

Harry hesitated and then dropped the hair into the cauldron. For a long, tense moment, nothing happened, and Harry wondered if she had brewed the mixture correctly. There were, after all, ample things that could go wrong, and it was a Master Level potion. Then the potion foamed and turned violet shot with streaks of gold, bubbling for a long while before at last settling down. They had the potion now.

"So, what now? Do we just wait for my query goes through the _Daily Prophet_?" Harry asked.

"What query?"

"Harry is planning on replacing Rita Skeeter in the _Daily Prophet_ ," Hermione told Ron as Harry cringed. "Not in a bad way, but just so that we can have a mouthpiece that isn't being controlled by the Ministry and is a little more respected than the Quibbler."

Ron whistled. "Good idea, Harry."

Harry blushed.

"Oh, and you've got to get some practice before you go in for an interview," Hermione said before things could get too far off topic. "If you walk in there looking and acting like Harry Potter, that'll be a dead giveaway, especially with the fact that Harry Potter would be missing right about the same time. Wizards obviously know that there are things capable of making one wizard appear to be another entirely."

"Practice?" Harry didn't like the sound of that.

"You'll need to learn to walk like a witch and talk like a witch and you'll also have to learn how to wear dresses and...other things." Hermione blushed. "And you'll probably need to know how to do makeup."

Harry wondered just how much she would yell at him later if he bolted. Next to him, Ron had once again turned a rather interesting color.

"C'mon now, it's not as bad as all that. I know it's weird, Harry, but you were the one to come up with the idea."

Harry muttered something that sounded rather suspiciously like "it was just an idea," but at a volume low enough that Hermione couldn't thump him for it. It had never really occurred to him that he would have to wear bras and things. Really, he should have chosen Lee Jordan and Viktor Krum's hair; at least he would still be male...

"We'll have to come up with a name for you," Hermione went on, far too enthusiastically from Harry's point of view. One would think that she _wanted_ to see him dolled up in witches' clothes! "And then we're going shopping in Hogsmeade, once I give you a little acting lesson. I'm sorry Harry, but I kind of draw the line at dressing you in my underclothes."

"The feeling is mutual, 'Mione," Harry responded, going a few shades paler. "Anyway, why can't I just wear what I normally wear under a dress or whatever?"

"Wizards will probably be looking and judging," Hermione responded matter-of-factly. Ron had started edging towards the door as if Hermione was some kind of feral animal that he wanted to run from while still not angering, which Harry concurred with. Unfortunately, he did not have the option of edging away slowly, and had to listen, blushing furiously, to Hermione explain exactly why he needed witches' underclothes. Not that she was crude about it, but _seriously_ , this was _not_ a topic he wanted to discuss with his female friend.

"If you're going to look like a witch, you're going to have to know how to act like one, and that includes stuff like this that normally a girl gets from her mom, so sorry," Hermione continued gently. "Besides, all of the girls in my dorm always assume I'm a little bookworm who doesn't do anything fun...it would be nice to go shopping with another girl for once..." her tone trailed off, momentarily wistful, before she at last straightened and glanced back at the mess of ingredients and spilled potion and utensils on the newly-scourgified floor of the Chamber of Secrets. "Anyway, let's get all this cleaned up and then I can start giving you your lessons. Did Ron run off?"

"Yeah, I think so," said Harry shakily, still thinking of what he was going to undertake. He really should have just bought the _Prophet_ out to begin with instead of coming up with this rigamarole!


	7. Chapter 7

"Right. Ok. So this is the test run, right?"

Hermione nodded, then handed Harry one of the bottles of altered potion. "Right. We're just testing the alternative polyjuice right now, to see if it works and how long it lasts. Then, once we've straightened that out, we can try it with some sort of aging spell or aging potion, so you can be the correct age."

"It would have to be aging potion," Ron interjected. "They might cast 'finite' on Harry to see if he is underage, you know. Aging potions are harder to detect, though; they'd have to give you the whole chemical test, which they wouldn't do unless they suspected something."

"Damn," Hermione muttered, making the eyes of both of her companions go wide. She was not, after all, a witch known for any kind of crude language or profanity. "We don't know how an aging potion will interact with the disguise potion, and it could cause a chemical reaction that could kill Harry, or it could make the duration of the disguise potion longer or shorter, or it could just do something else entirely. Then we'd probably have to go to St. Mungo's, or Professor Snape."

Harry swallowed hard. "Is the aging potion really necessary, then?"

"Yeah. They'll probably wonder why you're not at Hogwarts if you come as a woman the same age as you are now," Hermione told him. "I just wish we could use an aging charm!"

"Well, we can't." That was Ron. "But speaking of wondering why you're not at Hogwarts, they may want to know your credentials. Like, you don't even have your OWLS yet. What are we going to do about that?"

"Shoot! I didn't think about that," Harry said, frowning at violet, gold-shot potion. "Maybe they'll want an interview with the Boy-Who-Lived more than they'll want credentials?" he said hopefully.

"You can't keep thinking of that as your best offer," Hermione told him. "I mean, sure, they'd love that, but if it's all you have to offer..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know; I've got some other things lined up too," Harry told her. "But I'm still thinking that that's got to be the juiciest thing I have."

Hermione's look was slightly disapproving, but she made no more comment on that front, only looking back at the notebook in her hand. "Maybe you could take your OWLS early."

"But what about NEWTS?"

"Bribe Ms. Marchbanks?"

Ron looked as though he was about to faint. "'M-'Mione?"

"Grow up, Ron. I didn't sink all this work and all this expense and all this planning into this just to be put off because Harry doesn't have the right grades on the right arbitrary Ministry-assigned tests. If we need scores, we get scores. While I'm the first to say that he should get them legitimately, there's no possible way that he could get his NEWTS within the year, which is, I assume, the timeframe we are going to need. That said, you _could_ try for your DADA NEWT, since you are miles past what that Ministry bitch was trying to cram down our throats. It'd take a good bit of studying, but you _could_ do it, and I know that there are war-time laws that allow you to request to keep your actual test scores secret, and just use whatever final grade you got for whatever you need the credentials for."

Both boys stared at her as though they had never seen her before. "Y- _you_ think that they're _arbitrary_?" was all Ron could come up with to say.

Hermione thumped him. "Yes. Standardized testing is important, because you'll need the grades later in life, but at the end of the day, they're just a bunch of marks on a paper. They don't reflect how much you've actually _learned_ , they don't help you in the real world, and they sure as hell aren't fun to take."

Ron's mouth was gaping wide open. Hermione reached out and shut it. "What, did you think I _liked_ taking exams? Wait, don't answer that," she added, seeming to realize what Ron was going to say. "Point is, we need to test this potion, and then we need to research aging potions- I'll do that part, don't worry- and after that we need to help Harry get his act together. Get him female clothes and some sort of credentials, and then maybe make sure that he knows how to _act_ like a woman, too."

"He'll need to learn how to apparate, too," Ron broke in, once the shock had slightly worn off. "I mean, he might need it to get away from Death Eaters, and an apparation license is also sort of a type of credentials; sort of like a...um...driving license, is it called? For muggles?"

Hermione was nodding while Harry's head swung back and forth between them, as though he were watching a Quidditch match. Finally, the boy could not hold back any longer. "Um, guys? I'm kind of right here..."

"Oh, sorry Harry!" Hermione said, at once apologetic and almost effusive. "Um, so I'll just make a list and we can take things one step at a time. So, are you going to test the potion?"

Harry gulped, staring at the phial in his hand. "Um, yeah, I guess?"

"You don't have to do it if you don't want..." Ron interjected. He still seemed rather weirded-out about the whole "girl thing".

"No, I...I'll do it." Harry took another glance at the potion, braced himself, and drank the entire vial. Almost at once, a searing, agonizing pain ripped through his body, and his guts squirmed with agony and nausea, and he stumbled and fell, scraping his knees on the hard Chamber floor. Ron and Hermione were instantly at his side.

"Harry, are you ok?"

"What do you think, you bloody idiot?" Harry panted, the words warping in his mouth as said mouth twisted with the change. Harry thrashed, pain worse than in his visions washing over him again and again...and then, as abruptly as it had come on, all of the pain stopped at one and the same instant. Harry got to his feet slowly, helped by the other two.

"Um...how do you feel, mate? Can we get you anything?" asked Ron cautiously, obviously remembering how Harry had snapped at Hermione for asking a very similar question.

"Fine, actually, except a little dizzy," Harry replied, taking stock of his new body. He slowly turned around to face the other two...

"Oh my goodness," Hermione burst out, at the same time that Ron made a very interesting choking noise.

"Um. Mate. You, um. You look good. I mean-"

"Ron," Hermione began acidly, "best to quit while you're ahead..."

Harry was still trying to steady himself, as it seemed that his center of balance had changed, what with becoming taller and female. "Well I guess that answers if I look ok. Can I have a mirror?"

Hermione conjured him/her one, and Harry stared into it with interest. He/she had long, wavy black hair, deep brown eyes, and somewhat tanned skin, what with having some of Parvati's DNA, and if it wouldn't have been totally creepy, Harry might actually have had a crush on him/herself, especially due to the fact that the uniform which had been perfectly fine on Harry Potter was now much, much tighter. Harry blinked a few times, surprised by the long black eyelashes that he/she now had. It was quite disconcerting to have a bust (and his/hers was rather bigger than he/she would have liked, seeing as half of the DNA had come from the well-endowed Lavender Brown) and it was equally so to have nothing between his/her legs. He/she could already feel a blush heating his/her borrowed cheeks. "So, um, it works?" he/she commented, slightly unnerved by the velvet alto of his/her voice.

"Clearly," was Hermione's reply. "So anyway, right now all we have to do is wait for it to wear off, to see how long you have to go between doses. The recipe said an hour, right?"

"I think so," said Ron, to whom the question had been addressed. "That's what the recipe said, right? You tell me, you're the one who read it over five times..."

"Oh, hush you. So anyway, we are going to wait an hour and see if it wears off. If it doesn't wear off naturally in a day, we're probably going to have to go see about talking to a mediwitch, but it should be fine. The only other things we'll have to worry about are going to be problems when it wears off, like your hair stays longer or you still have breasts after everything else is fine," (Harry yelped at that, and Ron looked distinctly worried) "and problems with your hormones, because women need a whole different set of them, and the changes back and forth will probably give you a hormonal imbalance."

"Right," was Harry's shaky reply. This was sounding better and better, wasn't it.

The potion did _not_ wear off in an hour. It was very lucky that they had chosen a weekend to try out the potion, because Harry was still emphatically Esmeralda Grimm, (the persona he had constructed with Ron and Hermione) when Hermione's wand-alarm had gone off. And thus began a harrowing period of waiting. Hermione dug the textbook out of her bag, but upon rereading the recipe, she found that the part which had described the results had been splashed liberally with the potion in question, sometime in the distant past, and she could read only the word 'one'. One what? It was obviously not one minute, or one hour, but it could be anything from one day to one century, and they had no way of knowing how long it would be, since Hermione's page-cleaning charm had not managed to clear away the crusted potion, and a _scourgify_ would be too strong.

So, having nothing else to do while they were waiting, Hermione ran over her list, and they began to do the things that they could do. She gave them extra parchment and made them do their homework before anything else, and then she began helping Harry get into his persona as Esmeralda.

"No, not like that Harry!" Hermione frowned, looking at him. "You need to swing your hips a little more, and let your hands bump your hips when you're walking fast. Think about how a girl would walk."

"Is this better?" Harry said, walking across the Chamber and then back. Ron's eyes had by this time glazed over, watching, but Hermione was nodding, scribbling on her notepad as if she was tabulating every swing of Esmeralda's hips and every little tiny motion of her head as she walked.

"Yes. Put your chest out a little more though. You want to look confident, you don't want to slump like that."

Esmeralda obliged.

"Good, that's better. I think you've got the walk down. You just got to practice that a few more times."

Esmeralda walked back and forth down the Chamber another few times before at last stopping next to her friends, sitting down on a conjured chair and rubbing one hand through her hair.

"That's another thing."

"What?"

"That thing where you run your hand through your hair. That's all you, Harry. It's not a very feminine mannerism, and it's also pretty much your signature move. Anyone who knows what to look for will know that Esmeralda is you. You might want to try tapping your nails on a surface or chewing on your lip or blinking or something."

"Maybe twirling a strand of hair? That's something Ginny did a lot when she was younger," Ron suggested, bringing his eyes away from Esmeralda's cleavage with some difficulty.

"I'll try. It's not something I do consciously," Esmeralda said, with a little shrug. "Can we stop this right now? I mean, I swear that we can do more acting practice, but I'm probably going to go insane if we have to stay here in the Chamber all day."

"Well we can't go out into the castle at large while you're looking like Esmeralda, Harry," Hermione told him. "We can stop the acting lessons if you want, though; maybe we could start to work on your query."

"I finished that," was Esmeralda's reply. "And if we're going to be staying in here all day, what do we do about dinner?"

"We could call a house elf," Ron said. Then, at Hermione's sharp look, he added "or 'Mione or I could go get a basket from the kitchen and bring it back here, since _we_ aren't the ones who are female right now."

"Ron!"

"Or...oh!" Ron suddenly straightened, blue eyes sparkling. "You still have the Marauders' Map?"

"Yeah," said Esmeralda cautiously. "What do you have in mind?"

"It's a Hogsmeade weekend, remember?"

Esmeralda _did_ remember, mostly due to the fact that Ron had done quite a fair share of complaining that they were missing a Hogsmeade meeting to try out the potion.

"We can just sneak out, provided 'Mione has her permission slip."

"But what about Harry's?" Hermione asked, her recent disregard for rules obviously only going so far. "I'm going to assume that your relatives never got around to signing the thing?"

"They didn't, but think about it! First off, if I'm not Harry Potter, we won't be mobbed by autograph-seekers and Dark sympathizers, and this will also be a good way to test my disguise as Esmeralda. Secondly, we can do some shopping and whatnot and get the stupid female robes that I'll need if I want to get anywhere with the people at the Prophet headquarters."

Hermione appeared to be wavering, fiddling rather nervously with the non-drip quill in her hand.

"And anyway, if I've never properly explored Hogsmeade. Never even really been to Honeyduke's, beyond sneaking out through the basement..."

"Oh, fine. But I'm not taking the heat if you're caught, Harry. And for the record, I don't think this is a good idea. You could just randomly change back in the middle of a transaction."

"If I haven't transformed in the hour that we've been here, it stands to reason that I probably won't have to worry about it for at least a few minutes longer," Harry objected. "And if I start to feel like I'm going to change, I'll just hide in the loo under a silencing charm until it passes and then sneak out under my cloak and we'll go home."

"C'mon, 'Mione', live a little!" Ron, of course, expostulated.

Hermione gave a reluctant nod. "Ok. We'll do it."

Without further adieu, the three of them cleaned up the potion residue, put away their stuff under protective wards (just in case) and left the chamber, with disillusionment, muffling, and obscuring charms layered over them, (since they didn't quite all fit under Harry's invisibility cloak anymore). They then made their way to the statue of the humpbacked witch (ensuring that they did not get in anyone's way or run a risk of being spotted by watching the now-activated Marauders' Map) and then slipped out into the Honeydukes' basement and let the cloak fall behind them.

The shopping trip was the most fun that Esmeralda had ever had in Hogsmeade, not that he had had many experiences there. First they raided Honeydukes, (read, bought most of the store until Hermione started telling them horror stories about bad teeth, to which Ron had responded by holding up a package of Tooth-Flossing Stringmints and one of Cavity-Filling Caramel) and then they went to Tomes and Scrolls, where it was Hermione who went overboard while Ron and Esmeralda poked around and picked up a few books on DADA, Quidditch, ingredient preparation, and history (Esmeralda) and Quidditch, COMC, and chess (Ron). Then they went poking around in various dusty little shops, and Ron found a nice secondhand sneakoscope and some decent dress robes. After that, Hermione dragged Esmeralda into a cosmetics shop, telling Ron that they would meet up with him at the Three Broomsticks, since he definitely didn't want to go clothes and makeup shopping with the two.

What followed was a rather harrowing three hours as Hermione taught Esmeralda how to apply makeup of any given sort, what was permissible at an interview, what was permissible at a formal party, what was ok at a more informal party, and what was unacceptable, as well as a few tricks to cover up bruises, scars, and eye bags, and a few more tricks that were just fun, like fading two eyeshadow colors into a sort of ombre and making one's lips look redder and fuller when you didn't have red lipstick. Then she got Esmeralda some personal items and, after that humiliating adventure, dragged the newly-made girl off into a clothing store (Golden Pimpernel Wares) and got her some serviceable and modest dresses (mostly black, grey, brown, and navy) as well as an emerald gown that seemed designed to make an impression and all the brightly-colored things that Esmeralda would let her, a purse, and a few undergarments that made the girl blush a pretty shade of scarlet. The rest of what they got was more androgynous, but Hermione had rightly said that the stuffy _Prophet_ and Ministry workers would probably think that Esmeralda was getting ideas "above her station" if she tried to wear men's clothing, due to the uptight attitude that most of the Wizarding World still upheld.

In fact, the only problems they encountered the entire trip came when Esmeralda had gone to buy some jewelry to match the new emerald dress (at Hermione's insistence) and found that she didn't have enough galleons left. She was about to get a Gringotts draft, in fact, when Hermione realized that to do that, she would have to give the shopkeeper her actual name, so they pooled galleons instead, with Esmeralda promising to pay her friend back as soon as she could access her vault. Then they went to get ice cream at Fortescue's.

At last, they met up with Ron, who had ordered at least four butterbeers in their absence and looked just the slightest bit buzzed with the weak spirit. "What took you so long, you two?"

Hermione gestured to a flushing Esmeralda, who was wearing her new green dress (which had, of course, been struck by laundering charms) as well as some emerald and gold jewelry (not much, since she hadn't wanted to wear anything bling, girl or not) and a hibiscus behind the ear. Ron wolf-whistled, and got smacked for it.

"Seriously, mate, you clean up well," Ron said quietly to a now deeply red Esmeralda. "Did you find some good stuff?"

"Sort of. Ish. Still sort of new, you know," Esmeralda muttered, shifting from foot to foot and picking up her bags. "It...can we head back to the castle?"


End file.
